Condition is not stable yet

Living with cancer is really have to prepare for changes to happen anytime , you can feel good when wake up in the morning and suddenly feel very tired right after breakfast and the balance of the day you just want to sleep .

Or, you feel good for a day or two and feel so energetic, then, the next day you wake up feel like a sick man and just want to sleep and rest on your bed , no appetite or feel nausea .

After whole brain radiotheraphy, thing looks good and I did feel good, but, condition is not stable at all. On Wednesday I am okay and have lunch with friends, then , yesterday and today, I just do not like to move around, kind of tired .

But, whatever happen, I should not complain , as my overall condition is so much better than other patient . I should be grateful of my overall condition.

Hospice visited me today and took some photo for their magazine, actually I miss the daycare life in hospice and hope that I can attend it next week .

Will monitor more closely on my condition and pray to Lord to guide me how to overcome it .

Will now maintain my chemo on 6/8/12 , since my condition still not stable .

Be prepare , be ready , we will manage to have a better monitoring of our condition.

God bless .

Good news

After two very tired day, yesterday , I decided to pay a visit to Chinese doctor for treatment and pick up some medicine .
It works .
Right after the treatment I eat my lunch with good appetite.
Reach home took my Chinese medicine and feel quite okay !
The only problem is can not sleep until I finish my movie by 2+ am , thereafter, I sleep okay and wake up abt 9am this morning .
Having my breakfast now and everything just feel good !
Praise the Lord !
Lord is great, he always there to guide and lead us to find a solution to get our day better . Thanks Lord .

Praying for everyone to have a great week .

Praying my energy is fully recover .

God bless.

Feel tired

Since yesterday after breakfast, I feel tired and have to jump on bed to nap and rest.

After rest for more than an hour, the whole day still feel very tired.

At night minor headache strike, took panadol and have a good sleep for about 3 hours, wake up at 1.30am and found that my T shirt is wet ( I always sweat after taking panadol or any pain killer ) . By about 5 am, wake up and feel the minor headache is back. Continue sleeping until 8 am, all fine .

After breakfast , I again feel tired. Back to bed for a rest .

Praying to Lord, my body will recover from all the side effect before I start chemo theraphy in next two weeks.

Complete my 10 days Radiotheraphy

Yesterday I completed my 10 days whole brain radiotheraphy treatment .
Thanks Lord .
Thanks all the prayer .
All goes well with minimum side effect during the treatment.
Now is to closely monitor for next two weeks for any side effect from treatment.

One important thing I learn is radiotheraphy is as tired as chemo theraphy and I am the lucky one with blessing from Lord with very minimum side effet , except for on off headache and some nausea , other than that all well .

I have an appointment today afternoon for doctor follow up, and doctor is happy with my overall condition and will have mri brain in later stage to check on the radiotheraphy result .

We have set the chemo treatment date to start either in a week or two weeks, all depends on my overall condition in next one week.

Last two days I have problem to clear phlegm and feel very uneasy, Sometime I cough until I feel breathless and it not clear out. Finally this morning I find a solution, I lay on bed with body to one side , then, slowly cough, God bless, it help and I manage to do it slowly , take my time , and clear off most of the phlegm , feel so relief.

All well and I am driving again today with my wife beside of me .

Praise the Lord !

Two more days .

Feel great ! Two more days will complete my 10 days whole brain radiotheraphy .

Yesterday morning I regain my strength on both my legs and no more using walking stick . Thanks Lord.

Yesterday afternoon headache is back and manage to settle with panadol.

Today condition seems better for until now, slight nausea and all well.

Looking forward to Thursday where 10 days radiotheraphy will complete and I hope will feel better and start to regain my energy , so that can start to workout my body again .

May Lord bless us with joy and peace .

God bless.

Walking stick

I am fine on Friday and Saturday after radiation , except tired and nausea.

But, this morning, experience something new, I feel that my leg is kind of weak when I want to sit down . Something like, my leg may just give way. For precaution measure, I bought one walking stick and the U stand as support when I am standing and hold on it to sit down slowly.

Overall condition is not really bad, but, I feel more comfortable with the precaution measure.

Will monitor closely .

Glad that 6 days radiotheraphy is over and leave 4 days to go.

Praying for Lord blessing to have the balance 4 days going well .

God bless !

Finally I have radiation done yesterday and today

Hospital call me yesterday about 5.30 pm to inform me I can go over for the radiation.

Then, this morning I have it early at about 9.30am .

All goes well , no headache for yesterday and today . But, today nausea and feel of vomit is bad, lucky that it happen after lunch .

Overall of the day is good, but very tired today, maybe due to the two days radiation done in less than 15 hours.

Tomorrow radiation should be late afternoon, as hospital inform me to wait for their call at home, should call me about 2 pm to confirm appointment.

Hope to rest well tonight .

Oops ! Radiation machine out of service .

This morning, hospital call up inform me to stay at home to wait for their call, as there's some problem with the radiation machine.

Later they call up again and inform me no radiation for me for today and tomorrow, and they will call me on Friday to confirm the appointment.

Malaysia Boleh , one machine only and once breakdown, all affected.

What can I do ? The answer is stay at home have a good rest , maybe it is for the side effect to go away before continue with the 3rd day radiation.

But, question of is this going to affect the effectiveness of the radiation result . Be frank, I do not have the answer, but, for sure the doctor incharge will definitely say that it's not a problem , hahahahaha, if not they will get an immediate solution for me to proceed today radiation in another hospital.

Well ! Stay calm , rest and hope that the machine will be properly fix up , well tested before they call me in for radiation again.

Manage to settle down with headache

One tablet of panadol yesterday can not solve my headache and finally get ride of it with two tablets at night before sleep .

Thanks Lord, it works well and I wake up today morning all fine .
Doing some light exercise in the morning before breakfast and proceed to hospital.

Feel much better with today radiation, the face mask still tight, but, better than yesterday and the whole process finish fast.

Not as tired as yesterday and headache start to strike me at 3pm + , with two panadol and jump on bed have my nap, wake up about 7 pm with no more headache .

Nausea and vomit feeling is my main concern now , still try to figure out what type of food can help me, as I can not afford to lose weight .

Overall condition is good !

Praying for better condition for coming days.

God bless.

Start the day of new experience

Last week is busy in getting things organise and rest , eat yummy food.

Yesterday evening, pastor , cell leader and cell group member make a visit to my house and pray for me . Feel good , Thanks Lord .

This morning get ready to the new experience in cancer treatment . Overall all goes well , except the mask is too tight and therefore, I am not so comfortable . But, since the radiation is very fast, not really a big issue.

After the radiation, I feel a little tired and just rest in the car all the way back home and immediately go to bed for about 2 hours sleep.

Once wake up, start to have headache, it is bearable, so , drink water, eat fruit and lunch .

Just take one tablet of panadol , hopefully , it help .

All goes well as of now . Time to take another nap , hopefully headache will go away when I wake up .

Lord , please continue to touch me with your healing power and take away all the side effect .

Thanks Lord.

Amen.

Ready go , go , go

Feel great !
Have settle down and finalise the treatment plan today .
Confirm go ahead with the whole brain radiation on coming Monday for 10 days .
Thereafter, will have chemo treatment, date to confirm, depends on how well I cope with the radiation side effect.

Feel great after finalise the decision and now is time to rest well and ready for it.

Reason tbat I decided to go ahead with the plan on Monday is that advice receive is to get it done when it is small and sympton not yet start to disturb me . When sympton start to disturb me, it will give me more issue to deal with, meantime, chances to get ride of all the cancer cell and tumour in my brain is higher when it is small.

Thanks Lord bless me with wisdom , guide me and have so many good friend and doctor to give me good advice .

Good night !

What is WBR whole brain radiation

Last few days, I am reading alot about WBR , what is it about and the possible side effect.

Not that I worry , but, I believe to know what will happen and plan ahead is important.

Few things I need to do before the treatment ...
- to discuss with doctor to have 10 to 15 times instead of 5 times, as I was told , it is better to have more times with lower dose, this will help to reduce side effect.
- to find out more and decide wheher to hold on the WBR until I feel not well, or to proceed with it . Reason being, I do not have any sympton yet, going ahead with WBR, means I will have to go thro' the side effect immediate. if I hold on, am I going to have more days of quality life .

Praying to Lord for wisdom to guide me.


Following are information about Whole Brain Radiation , extract from Living with Brain Mets.

http://www.livingwithbrainmets.org/brain-radiation-treatment.html

Whole Brain Radiation
Whole brain radiation consists of small daily doses of radiation delivered to the entire brain. Whole brain irradiation is frequently prescribed for patients with brain metastases. This treatment uses radiation to treat the visible lumps of tumor and the presumed invisible tumor deposits that are so small they may not be seen on even a sensitive MRI scan. Therefore, large areas of the brain may be treated to stop the spread of the tumors.

Does it work?
Symptoms caused by tumors metastatic to the brain usually respond to whole brain radiation therapy; different studies have reported response rates of 50 to 70 percent.

The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) performed randomized studies that showed a course of 10 treatments over two weeks to give a total dose of 30 Gray the same as 3000 centiGray or 3000 rads, to use older terms was as good as more extended courses of radiation therapy that give higher doses. In some situations, a shorter or longer course of treatment than two weeks may be preferable. For patients who have a single brain metastasis that is removed surgically, whole brain radiation therapy was found in a randomized study to give great improvements in preventing cancer from regrowing in the brain and in prolonging survival.

What are the side effects?
In general, there will be hair loss, skin irritation, loss of appetite, and neurologic effects. The most prevalent side effect is fatigue which is may last through treatment and for two months afterwards. The neurologic effects most affecting quality of life are eventual permanent memory and speech problems. These are just a few of the problems that can develop.

Whole Brain Radiation combined with Stereotactic Radiosurgery
Stereotactic radiosurgery can be combined with whole brain radiation therapy for brain metastases. The whole brain radiation therapy will treat the visible metastases and any presumed microscopic tumor deposits as well. This is possible because whole brain radiation therapy is given as a low dose to a larger volume and targeted to the tumor and the area of possible tumor spread, while stereotactic radiosurgery is a high dose given to a very small volume and targeted only within the tumor itself. The two treatment techniques can be thought of as complementary in achieving control of metastases to the brain.

Whole brain radiation therapy can cause shrinkage of visible brain metastases, sometimes making them more amenable to stereotactic radiosurgery or microsurgery. The addition of whole brain radiation therapy to stereotactic radiosurgery can decrease the possibility of additional metastatic lesions and decrease the chance that visible lesions treated with radiosurgery may have recurrences after radiosurgical treatment. Omission of whole brain radiation therapy for brain metastases is slightly controversial, but this is an area of ongoing intensive research.

Recently, some investigators have tried stereotactic radiosurgery alone without whole brain radiation therapy for selected patients with brain metastases to avoid causing the side effects of whole brain radiotherapy. Because whole brain radiation therapy can be given at a later date to these patients if their metastases are not controlled by the radiosurgery, this strategy may relieve symptoms effectively while not adversely affecting survival.

There is a widely accepted belief that for melanoma, kidney cancer and sarcomas that spread to the brain, stereotactic radiosurgery may be more effective at controlling the lesions than whole brain radiation therapy. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) is evaluating radiosurgery as a solitary treatment for patients with one to three brain metastases of these types of tumors.